Week 9 - Planning Mini-conference

Sorry for the delay of the post. I had a very very very busy holiday in China for the last several weeks. Not handy to get online, and another main reason is – I’ve got no time to go to the Internet Café and spend hours there. Now it’s the time to catch up, thou a bit late.

Week9 – Planning Mini-Conference
This week we are required to publish the plan of mini conference.

Background information
This is the first time for me doing a course within an online community. I am happy to know various kinds of online communities and experienced quite a lot. It’s really great that I know I am connected and I can share my thoughts, my experience with my peers, get the support from them. Thx guys who visits this blog and left your comments here

Leigh introduced several of experienced wonderful online tutors. We had a really nice chat and decided our topic is “connecting online in developing countries”. I myself had the experience of been connected online in China, and another guest speaker, Minhaaj, living in Pakistan and is experienced in online teaching and face to face teaching. He knows a lot of current issues of our topic. My dear buddy, Nellie, helped a lot in the session preparation and she is a wonderful skilled online tutor, quite familiar with online teaching and knows exactly about the online learning in developing countries. I am so happy we have such a great team to work towards our goals.

Actually I myself am interested in this topic too. All the questions that I can think about at this stage are listed as followings:

• How’s the situation in developing countries to be connected online?
• What are the main issues connecting online in developing counties?
• Are the barriers for us to go online the same for people in developing countries?
• What are the challenges and opportunities for people living in developing countries to be connected online?
• Is there any difference between the communities in developed and developing counties?
• How to empower online communities in developing countries?

Hope from the online session we can learn more on this topic

Overview of mini conference
Title: Connecting online in developing countries
Facilitators: Joy and guest speakers: Nellie, Minhaaj
Aim:

• Explain current issue of connecting online in developing countries


• Discuss the current situation of online communities in developing countries


• Summarize characteristics of online communities in developing countries


• Find out different ways to improve and empower online communities in developing countries

Guest speakers: Nellie Deutch, Minhajj

Promotions:

We are connected online and forming various online communities. Do you know what problems people living in developing countries meet when they try to join in online communities and maintain the connection? What is the situation of online communities in developing countries? Our guest speakers are all very experienced and skilled in this topic. Come and share your thoughts and you will get more information than you expected.

Event time:

Sat. 8th, Nov. 2008 8pm-9pm NZ time. (Sat. 8th Nov. 7am-8am GMT), Check your time here

Discussion starters
At the beginning of the session, I will introduce my guest speakers to our students. Asking all the attendants to briefly introduce themselves.
To start the discussion, I will introduce several interviews I had done in China. Then I will ask attendants to share their personal experience of online community access problems, e.g. language barrier, technical problem, Internet access, etc.

Technical support service

We’ll use WiZiQ as a platform for our online session. So all the attendants need to sign in WiZiQ. WiZiQ is an amazing online learning tool and I am totally attracted by it. We can use audio and video information for our online session and every one attend the session need a microphone (at least a headphone) to talk to others. WiZiQ provides free induction of how to use it. Student can book with their fantastic team. I had one session last night and it was fabulous – very well organized information, clear demonstration. It’s great!

WiZiQ will keep all the session information, e.g. audio recording, chatting text, white board, etc for a certain period for users to review. What a great idea!

Concerned issues
It’s a bit inconvenient for people to sign in WiZiQ before they attend the session;
The audio recording can only be played back in WiZiQ and shared on WiZiQ. Haven’t found any way to download it.

Conclusion

The preparation work is much more than I expected. It’s a good experience of team work, especially teamed up with people they are experienced and from various background. Great to work with them.

Week 7 -Blogosphere

1. Look at the Wikipedia entry for Blogosphere and pay particular attention to the See Also section. Read up on one of the listed blogospheres in that section and write a post to your blog that explains in your own words what a Blogging Network is and can be - cite examples.

2. Review this course as a blogging network to date. Does it connect out to a wider network, or is it insular? Does this blogging network have a facilitator or should it need one? Consider your role in helping to develop this blogging network. Finally, comment on the strengths and weaknesses as you see them, of a blogging network for online community development.


What is blogosphere? Here are several of the definition for it:

Definition of Blogosphere:Basically it was coined to describe the interconnection between the millions of blogs on the internet.
From http://www.socialmedian.com/story/897649/what-is-blogosphere-what-is-guide

Millions of blogs and their contributors and users to a blog biosphere or ecosystem...Many blogs syndicate their content to subscribers using RSS, a popular content distribution tool.
http://searchsoa.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,,sid26_gci1007574,00.html

The blogosphere is a term used to describe the millions of interconnected blogs on the Internet.
http://websearch.about.com/od/blogsforumssocialsites/f/blogosphere.htm


The first time I have been to Global Voices Online. The goal of Global Voices Online is displayed in teh homepage as following, "Global Voices aggregates, curates, and amplifies the global conversation online – shining light on places and people other media often ignore."The declaration really attrached me. So I clicked links and read them. Then I was totally indulged in reading all the information from it! What an amazing websites! It intergrage lots of information on different topics, on almost every country in the world, and of course, info of the latest news can be read here as well.

To me, using blod and reading blogs is a new experience, only after I started this course I get more "touch" with blogs. Before that to me blogs are more private space to share infomation with friends. I never try to get into the blog network before. ALL I did is follow the links some pages that I read and read somebody's blog. This time when I tried Global Voices Online I realised a blogosphere could be so huge like Global Voices Online and could contain such a varity of topics. I added it into my favourate websites and would visit it regularly later, and I am sure I will get more acknowledge on blogoshpere.


Review this course as a blogging network to date. Does it connect out to a wider network, or is it insular?

For me as a new user of blog, and also always struggled to read all the postings and discussion at the beginning (thanks Leigh set me free by telling me it's optional to read info from google discussion group, and I did, totally ignored it ^_^). Now I only focus on reading the posts from my blog list. So as far my experience to date, the blog connections of this course is more like a group rather than community or network. Maybe to others who read and cross linked a lot it is a wider network.


Does this blogging network have a facilitator or should it need one?

This blogging network is a bit different. We have learning goals to achieve in a certain period of time. So for members dedicated into the course and would like to keep on track we have to read and post regularly and to make sure everyone is on the right track and encourage them to getting to the goals every week, we do need a facilitator to organise, encourage, give feedback and trace everyone's process.


Consider your role in helping to develop this blogging network.

Same as Kay Lewis mentioned in her blog, I am doing the similar things: posting regularly ( I am still far behind and trying to catch up now); reading and commenting others blogs (mainly those from my bloglist) etc. I am sorry to say maybe I didnt help very much on helping to develop the blogging network. I am just focus on the "small group" of my bloglist and try to be active in reading and posting, although I know I am not that active as I should be :-(


Comment on the strengths and weaknesses of a blogging network for online community development.

The most significant character of using blog for me, a new user, is that blog is more private space. I feel it's mine blog, recording all the thoughts of mine understanding. I do have a strong feeling of owning it. Sometimes I am suprised to this feeling too, especially when I examined all the content on my blog, which is nothing personal, private or sensitive. I know everyone can read my posts and leave comments on my blog but still I look after it like taking care of my baby :-) and it's mine, how wired... :-)

So this kind of privacy keep me feel safe and more comfort. But on the other hand, it's not like discussion forum, every topic is listed publicly and easy to be accessed. Blogs content is not easy to organise and displayed, the difficulty of access maybe a barrier to public awareness? Or maybe I am still not quite familiar with the way to access and visit blogs so that's why I feel it's not that handy to move from one blog to the other.